President-elect Trump will be able to instruct the Treasury Department to name China a currency manipulator by using a 1988 trade law even though China does not meet all three criteria used in an October Treasury report to analyze major trading partners' foreign exchange policies, according to analysts and academics interviewed by Inside U.S. Trade.

Trump has said he is planning to name China a currency manipulator on “day one” of his term in office and has also threatened to apply tariffs in response to what he sees as China's currency devaluation. However, China has not manipulated its currency in a way that is detrimental to the U.S. over the past two years.

The 1988 Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act authorizes Treasury to name countries currency manipulators if they have “global current account surpluses” and “significant bilateral trade surpluses.” The Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015 adds a third criteria: “persistent one-sided intervention in the foreign exchange market."